A spiritual Blog

Month: April 2020

“We have often found among the brethren that they have found such gladness and grace that for five or six years, they say, concupiscence had withdrawn away, and after this, when they supposes that they were free from it, the evil, which has been concealed, set upon them, and they were all on fire with concupiscence, so that they were surprised, and said, ‘After a long time, whence did this evil rise against us?’ No man of sound mind dares to say, ‘While grace is with me, I am completely free from sin.’ Both the two characters are at work upon the mind. People of no experience in these matters, when grace has had some little effect upon them, imagine that they have already conquered, and are perfect Christians. For my part, I say that the fact is this; –When the sun is in the sky, shining in a clear air, and clouds come about him and cover him, and make the air thick, and yet the sun, far within, is not robbed either of his light or of his proper being, so it is with those who are not completely cleansed. Being in the Grace of God, and yet held by sin beneath the surface, they have the natural motions and the actual thoughts strong towards God, and yet are not entirely belonging to good.” ~St. Macarius the Egyptian

Grace and Concupiscence

St. Macarius says concupiscence has drawn away from those living in God’s grace. It is not clear to me if he means concupiscence as a strong sexual desire or all strong desires. In either case, it is true that the spiritually awakened, which is another way of saying living in God’s grace, generally do not have strong desires for earthly or material things, including sex. That doesn’t mean spiritual people don’t have sexual desires and don’t have sex. It means they have more control over such desires than those who surrender to materialistic and animalistic ways.

Free from Evil

Whether it is concupiscence in the form of sexual desires or some other form of sin, we are not entirely free of this simply because we have had a “spiritual awakening”. For starters, there are many ideas of what a spiritual awakening consists of.

Some think that merely becoming aware that there is more to life and the universe than the fallen realm of matter. Clearly, that alone would not end concupiscence. Others get int Kundalini and think that once they have the kundalini energy moving through them, they are awake. That is not necessarily true, so that alone will not keep them free from sin. They can still be led astray by demons or mere evil or ignorant people.

Another group that includes those of us in the Cosolargy spiritual school think that awakening means bringing the dormant spiritual faculties—the spirit and soul—into full function and consciousness. This is a more complex process than either of the other two and generally happens gradually over a long period of time (think decades). If they are in that awakening process but haven’t completed it, they can still be led astray. Those who are fully awakened—and they are quite rare—are less easily influenced by the dark forces, but it can happen. What’s worse is the demons work their hardest at turning such people back toward the darkness of materialism. They are attracted to such people by their light, and yet want that light to go out. Continue reading “Concupiscence and Grace”→

“Before Adam of light withdrew in the chaos, the authorities saw him. They laughed at the chief creator because he lied, saying, “I am god and there is no other god but me.” When they came to him, they said, “Is this not the god who ruined our work?” He answered and said, “Yes, but if you wish that he not be able to ruin our work, come, let’s create a human being from the earth according to the image of our body and according to the likeness of this being, to serve us, so that whenever this being sees his likeness, he may become enamored of it. Then he will no longer ruin our work, but we shall make those who are born from the light our servants through all the time of this age.” Now, all this came to pass according to the forethought of Pistis in order that humankind might appear after this likeness and condemn them on account of their fashioned bodies. And their fashioned bodies became fences for the light. Then the authorities received knowledge necessary to create people. Sophia Zoe, who is with Sabaoth, anticipated them and laughed at their decision because they were blind—in ignorance they created him against themselves. They do not know what they do. Because of this she anticipated them. She created her human being first in order that he might tell their fashioned body how to scorn them and thus to escape them.” ~On the Origin of the World

Adam of Light

Adam of Light is an interesting way to refer to this symbolic first human. It tells us that Adam was not originally a being of solid matter, but was mostly spirit and light. It took a number of generations for man to descend far enough into matter that the light was essentially lost to him and he had no direct connection with God anymore, not directly anyway. Now we have descended as far as is possible without losing our connection with that light permanently. We need to turn around now and head the other way so we too can be Adam of Light.

Laughed at the Creator

Who “They” are is not clear and it may seem strange that they are laughing at the creator. You have to understand that the creator they are laughing at isn’t God, but the false god, the Demiurge. They laugh at him because he likes to pretend he is the one and only God and gets angry at those who say otherwise. This is the jealous god of the Old Testament of the Bible, which is not at all the true God of the New Testament that Jesus called father. Continue reading “Adam of Light And Becoming Like Him”→

“You study every day; often when you least think you are studying. You study as you walk the street in repose, and look into peoples’s faces, and are interested and amused by them. You are then learning more and more of the different varieties of human nature. Men and women then are books to you. You open and read them. You learn to recognize in an instant, by the look on people’s faces, how they feel and what are their dispositions. Involuntarily, you are classifying men and women, and putting them down in your mind according to their characters. One specimen so recognized serves as the type for one thousand, for a race. You set down this man as no gentleman, from the manner in which he looks at a lady. You see in this overdressed women the low pride of mere money. You are studying human nature.

“Knowledge of human nature has a commercial value in dollars and cents. When you are accomplished in it, you may tell in five seconds whether you can trust a person or not. Trust in people is the corner stone of all business success. Even thieves must trust to confederates in order successfully to complete a burglary.” ~Prentice Mulford

Study Every Day

While our formal education may end at some point, we nonetheless continue to learn. As Mr. Mulford says, we study every day, often without being aware of it. He delves primarily into the study of human nature or the human psyche, but only on the material level. Mulford is not a spiritual teacher, so he doesn’t mention that side of it, though that is even more important than studying the physical level.

Study People

The most common way that we study every day is by studying people, as Mulford notes. We probably don’t even realize we are doing it, but we are. We look at their faces, at their walk, at how they dress, etc. Opinions are formed of total strangers based on these observations. We also form opinions of ourselves when we do this.

I remember when I was a child that my parents warned me and my siblings to stay away from Puerto Ricans because they all carried switchblades and were all prone to violence. This is not true, of course, but the only Puerto Rican’s they had ever seen were the ones they saw on the news, so based on those limited observations, they formed an opinion of all those people.

In school, especially High School, we notice that the cool jock guy is wearing Boop brand jeans and they look great on him. We don’t know, or even care, that the cool guy’s father works for Boop jeans and gets them at a discount. If the cool guy is wearing them, we have to get Boop jeans so we can be cool also. With the girls, the same would apply for a skirt style, or a shoe style. We don’t think of this as learning or studying, but it is. Unfortunately, it is largely a study of opinions, not facts.

Study Things

People are not the only things we study every day, we study animals, plants, buildings, just about everything in our environment. Yet often we are unaware of things except on a subconscious level.

I recall some years ago when a street near where I lived was closed for a few weeks while a bridge on it was being repaired. From the area where I walked my dog, I could see this road and the sign on it that said (Road closed ahead, turn around). While I watched, five cars came down that road and only one of them turned around. The other four drove on only to reach the blocked road at the bridge and have to turn around and drive back half a mile to the nearest intersection.

But we do study things and learn from them. Unfortunately, we often learn the wrong things from the wrong sources. Instead of learning how to be more civilized by studying more advanced people, we look at wild animals and start behaving like them. That might be acceptable if we were looking at deer and rabbits, but that is rarely the case. People look at bears and tigers and think they should behave as these wild animals do. The truth is, unless you work as a zoo or animal preserve, you only see a small part of their behavior and make choices based on that. On top of it, most don’t understand that the animals are getting their behavior from us. We set the patterns that they follow.

Spiritual Study

The most important way to study every day is through spiritual study, but only a small fraction of us are doing that. Our spirits and souls are immortal, and therefore more important than our mortal bodies. Yet people who spend much time caring for their bodies do little for the spirit. We need to look at spiritual people and see how they behave. We need to learn from spiritual beings as well. It is just as important to study angels and beings of light every day as it is to study the world around us. The reason most of us don’t do that is that we have not awakened our spiritual faculties that are dormant when we come into the material world. This is not our fault. Few of us are ever told that these faculties are dormant and must be awakened. Even fewer believe that when they are told. But if they were to study every day those who do awaken their spirit and soul and grow in spiritual awareness and consciousness, they would see how important it is for all of humanity. Mulford says knowledge has a monetary value, and that is often true, but spiritual knowledge has a spiritual value that is worth far more than money. So study the world every day, study people every day, and study the spiritual every day.

“Gnosis depends upon distinguishing the psyche, or soul, from the deep self, which pragmatically means that any strengthening of the psyche depends upon acquaintance with the original self, already one with God. Originality is as much the mark of historical Gnosticism as it is of canonical Western literature; that C. S. Lewis simultaneously deprecates both the self and originality confirms the Gnostic negative analysis of those who assert that they live by faith rather than by knowledge. Christian faith is pistis, a believing that something was, is, and will be so. Judaic faith is a trusting in the Covenant. Islam means submission to the will of Allah, as expressed through his messenger, Muhammad, ‘the seal of the prophets.’ But Gnosis is not a believing that, a trusting in, or a submission. Rather, it is mutual knowing, and a simultaneous being known, of and by God.

“I cannot pretend that this is a simple process, it is far more elitist than C. S. Lewis’s ‘mere Christianity,’ and I suspect that this elitism is why Gnosticism always has been defeated by by orthodox Christian faith, in history.” ~Harold Bloom

Knowing is Gnosis

Bloom is writing more as a critic of traditional religion rather than a defender of Gnosticism. That needs to be taken into account when reading his comments on Gnosticism and Gnosis.

Before you can achieve Gnosis, you have to know what Gnosis means. Some say that it simply means knowledge, all knowledge, knowledge of anything. That is incorrect. Knowledge of how to make a chocolate cake is not Gnosis. Knowledge of how to build a house is not Gnosis. The knowledge found in a book is not Gnosis, even if the author of the book was a Gnostic.

Only one kind of knowledge truly qualifies as Gnosis and that is Divine Knowledge. This Divine Knowledge is all Knowledge, true knowledge with no veils, no distortions, no opinions. So the only way to get such knowledge is through a direct connection with higher levels of consciousness and the spiritual beings that live there. The ultimate Gnosis comes when we fully realize our connection to the One Consciousness that is God. That is true Gnosis, and it can only be gained by direct experience, never indirectly by reading books or watching videos. Continue reading “Gnosis is Knowing, But We Must Know Gnosis”→